August 10, 2016
People of Hispanic origin comprise the nation’s largest ethnic or racial minority, according to the latest U.S. Census data. As of July 1, 2015, Hispanics constituted 17.6 percent of the nation’s total population, with 56.6 million Hispanics in the U.S.
Looking into information about ethnicity and vision, we found:
1) Sixty-six percent of ethnic minorities don’t know their ethnicity could be putting them at higher risk for eye problems.
2) Less than four-out-of-10 ethnic minorities scheduled an eye exam within the past year.
3) Just 3.7 percent of Hispanics, 7.5 percent of African-Americans and 10.1 percent of Caucasians know that UV rays can damage their eyes.
Drilling down deeper into health issues affecting vision for Hispanics:
• Approximately 10 percent of Hispanics are at risk for developing advanced macular degeneration.
• Hispanics are three times more likely to develop cataracts than Caucasians or African-Americans.
• Glaucoma is the number one cause of blindness in Hispanics.
• Pterygium is more common among Hispanics than other ethnicities.
• Ten percent of Hispanics have diabetes with estimates that as high as 95 percent of Hispanics may eventually develop type 2 diabetes.
• Twenty-nine percent of Hispanics have high blood pressure.
• Astigmatism is most prevalent among Hispanic children (37 percent of Hispanic children had astigmatism).
Here’s the key point: only 40 percent of Hispanics had an eye exam within the last year. Clearly, Hispanics have higher risks for developing eye problems compared to other ethnicities, yet less than half have had an eye exam within the last year.
Sight-threatening conditions such as macular degeneration, diabetes and glaucoma – all of which are at higher risk for Hispanics – have subtle changes early in each of those conditions’ development that do not cause symptoms that would drive a Hispanic person to seek an eye exam. Keep in mind that each of those sight-threatening conditions has significantly better outcomes when caught early and treatment is instituted early.
The need to provide more care for the Hispanic population is clear. Because of the higher risk for developing sight-threatening eye conditions, we need to reach out to Hispanics through our marketing, provide education on the need for annual eye exams, and then make sure we are tracking the results of our efforts to confirm that we are seeing and treating a higher number of Hispanics each year.
Here’s a sample ad built on information from this article that you could use. Make sure you add your practice contact information.
To make an even more effective ad, have it translated into Spanish.
References
i. https://www.nei.nih.gov/
ii. http://www.eyeglassguide.com/my-eyes/ethnicity/
iii. Refractive Error and Ethnicity in Children, Robert N. Kleinstein, OD, MPH, PhD; Lisa A. Jones, PhD; et al., Arch Ophthalmol. 2003;121(8):1141-1147. doi:10.1001/archopht.121.8.1141
